The death penalty is a “direct descendant of lynching” that has nothing to do with justice – although that’s what the public is told. This practice, long abolished in other countries, is getting worse in the U.S., and Black people are paying a price that doesn’t make any sense.
If the death penalty were just, there wouldn’t be racial bias in victims and sentencing. A recent study found that “defendants convicted of killing white victims were executed at a rate 17 times greater than those convicted of killing Black victims.” And that’s only part of the issue.
Black people are also more likely to be sentenced to death. There's a long list of names: Troy Davis, Rodney Reed, Nathaniel Woods, Crosley Green, and Julius Jones are just a few that highlight how innocence and evidence don’t matter – race does.
Race predicts who gets executed. It’s replaced lynching, much like prisons and convict leasing replaced slavery. The U.S. is so backwards, it still considers gas chambers, the electric chair, and firing squads for execution! This country has to get it together.
Black people have made up the majority of executions for ages. Countless Black people have been killed by this racist practice. The death penalty must be abolished. This racist killing machine is incompatible with justice!